Sunday, May 17, 2009

(May 13, 2009) – Facing serious reductions in state funding, the California State University Board of Trustees today increased undergraduate, credential and graduate student fees for the 2009-10 academic year.

Effective in fall 2009, full-time annual fees will increase by $306 for undergraduate students, $354 for teacher credential students and $378 for graduate students. The undergraduate State University Fee will go up from the current $3,048 to $3,354 per year. Including the current average campus fee of $801, CSU undergraduate students will pay approximately $4,155 for one academic year, which is the lowest fee among comparable public institutions.

“It is never an easy choice to raise fees, but we are faced with a dire state budget, and today’s increase is necessary to maintain and operate our university campuses,” said CSU Board Chair Jeffrey Bleich. “It is critical that students get their financial aid requests in. This year, benefits for programs such as the Pell Grant are more generous than ever. Through financial aid and grants, nearly half of our students will see no increase in their fees. In addition, due to financial aid, CSU students with family incomes of $75,000 or less will pay no fees at all.”

The student fee increase, which represents $127 million in revenue, was included as part of the 2009-10 budget adopted by the legislature.The university will set aside one-third of the revenue from the fee increase ($42 million) to augment financial aid to cover the fee increase for financially needy students. Approximately 183,000 undergraduate students will receive grants that fully pay the entire fee, which represents about 80 percent of undergraduates who receive financial aid. All other financial aid recipients will be offered loans and employment to offset the fee increase.

The CSU Trustees voted 17 to 2 in favor of the fee increase with Lt. Governor John Garamendi and student trustee Curtis Grima casting dissenting votes.

New Professional MBA Fee Also Adopted

Trustees also adopted a professional fee for state-supported Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) programs and similar business graduate degrees. The fee adds $210 per semester unit and $140 per quarter unit for an annual cost of $9,174. The CSU’s MBA programs remain well below the price for comparable institutions.

Up to one-third of the new fee revenue will be set aside for financial aid with the remainder used to recruit highly skilled faculty to make accreditation of the MBA programs more secure. The proposed fee would apply to professional business master’s programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB).

The trustees voted 18 to 1 in favor of the professional MBA fee increase with Lt. Governor Garamendi casting the lone dissenting vote.